"You're right, the words of a weakling don't matter," Velian looked at the huge black dragon in front of him, with his golden colour eyes and nodded his head.
"I will fight for her, and show that I'm the better person to take care of her,"
This was a battle that Velian couldn't back down from. It had Velian's pride and parenthood ad bets. If he loses this fight, he would lose all the authority to call Aurora his daughter.
He won't be able to see her grow.
He won't be able to see her smiling.
"Is killing allowed?"
"No, I don't want to kill you, I just want to see why Yuvanna trusted you, was it in the heat of the moment or she saw something in you?"
To Velian's question the dragon answered, but Velian was confused because the dragon didn't ask how and why Yuvanna died.
"You don't care about how she died? You didn't ask anything," Before they start their duel, Veliam wanted to know.
"I don't care, I just care about what's in front of me, I don't care about someone that's dead,"
His sentence didn't make sense to someone short-lived like Velian, but the main reason all the dragons acted like shut-ins is because of how long their life span is.
They experience the death of many generations in their lifetime, so they obviously stop caring at one point so they wouldn't have to be sad in their long life span.
"Fine! Enough talking, let's get into it,"
The dragon nodded in agreement.
"I understand. Let us begin."
With a roar, the dragon launched himself at Velian, claws outstretched. Velian dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding his attack. He swung his sword, but the dragon was too fast, dodging out of the way.
At first, he thought about using his magic, but he wasn't sure whether he would be able to control the power, not kill the dragon.
He had confidence in his power, but using magic, when the dragon is using physical attacks felt a little absurd, so he waited for the dragon to use magic so things would be fair for both parties.
"You're quick," Velian said, his breath coming in short gasps.
"And you're skilled," the dragon replied, a hint of admiration in his voice. "But this battle is far from over."
With that, the dragon lunged at Velian again, his wings beating furiously as he flew towards him. Velian held his ground, waiting for the right moment to strike. At the last possible second, he sidestepped the dragon and swung his sword in a wide arc, hitting his tail.
The dragon roared in pain, but quickly recovered, launching himself at Velian once more. The two duelled fiercely, each trying to gain the upper hand.
"You can't win, human!" the dragon growled.
"I admit, you're powerful, but you can't beat a dragon."
Velian didn't answer. Instead, he gritted his teeth and charged forward, his sword flashing in the sunlight. The dragon was too slow to react, and Velian's blade connected with his scales, sending sparks flying again.
But this time, Velian also felt the tail of the dragon bashing his guts making it hard for him to breathe, so he quickly jumped back.
The dragon roared in pain, but he didn't back down. Instead, he continued to attack, each blow more ferocious than the last.
Velian was running out of energy, his arms aching from the strain of holding his sword. He knew that he couldn't keep this up much longer.
"Looks like I will have to use the magic, I can't, or use my other sword directly, but it might kill her,"
In the end, Velian didn't want to go back on their promise and kill the dragon, so he decided to use magic.
But before he could do that he saw Aurora coming out of the forest with her eyes unusually red. Behind her, other girls also kept chasing her until Aurora suddenly jumped and used her dragon breath on the dragon that was fighting with Velian.
"Aurora!" Velian shouted and quickly held her by her hand, and covered her in case the dragon tried to attack her, but no attack came as he was stunned by what happened.
"Wait! Wait! This is the dragon, right? How did she use dragon breath? She's not even one year old, right? This is absurd!" The dragon shouted like it saw the most absurd thing.
Velian was convicted of what to do but kept covering Aurora while asking the dragon to go along with their deal.
"I don't feel like playing now, if we fight now, I'm going to kill you, the duel is over, what do you think? Will you give me one year or-" Velian couldn't even finish his words, as the dragon started groaning in pain.
"I agree! Kuhh~ she's a little rascal, her dragon breath really hurts, I'm impressed by our skills either way,"
"You fought reality well," the dragon said, a hint of pain in her smile.
Velian nodded, sheathing his sword. "You too. I must admit, I wasn't sure I could win if I can't kill you."
The dragon chuckled. "Don't sell yourself short. You're a skilled warrior, you don't need magic to fight someone like me,"
"I will go back, in one year, you will have to send her to prove herself in front of the other two dragons, until then take care of her,"
The dragon said and gave one last look at Aurora.
'She looks nothing like Yuvanna, how did she even get a human form this early, looks like things are getting interesting'
Muttering those words to himself, the dragon tried to leave the forest but before that, he looked at Velian and decided to give a warning.
"Be careful about the dragon with light ted shade scales, he's not someone that should be near Yuvanna's offspring,"
And with that, the dragon set off into the deep of the forest with its wings widely spread but before he could do that Velian shouted, as he had another important question to ask.
"Dragon, do you know about the black thing that tried to kill Yuvanna?" Velian shouted to the dragon that was already flying in the sky and he wanted to know the answer, so he won't have to face another disaster.
"Black thing? No idea, well then, take care of Yuvanna's offspring,"
Leaving Velian hopeless, the dragon left the area while Aurora hugged Velian's leg with her shaking little hands.
